Pages

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Camp Idontwannagrowup

The
last weekend of April was spent at Whiskeytown Lake, celebrating James'
30th birthday at "Camp Idontwannagrowup" which was a figment of James'
imagination-turned adult summer camp.

There
were more than 30 of us, including friends from childhood to adulthood,
as well as family, including his parents, aunt and uncle, brother and
sister-in-law, and ten-week-old nephew, Lachlan. Can you imagine camping with an infant? It wasn't even baby's first camping trip!

Me, James, Gio, and Brittany

We can thank these two for giving us James!

BFFs

UCSD pals

Throughout the weekend, activities vacillated between relaxed moments
appreciating nature and each other's company to manic highs of frenzied
competition and adventure. Let's start with the (relatively) calm moments.

Brittany, Gio, and me

We legitimately almost capsized.

Grub time in 'Murica

Over the span of the weekend (or perhaps just Saturday), there were 29
scheduled activities. This included three rounds of three activities
each that were led by individual campers. Our camp split into groups of
ten based on which activity they wanted to do, including hide and seek,
a scavenger hunt, improv, and various other games and crafts.

One
of my favorite activities was acroyoga. It was bizarrely intimate,
crawling on top of or flying on the feet of someone you'd just met that
weekend, but we had a fantastic time.

Look, ma, I can fly!

Brittany spreading her wings

Another
activity I did that morning was finger painting a portrait of James.
There were some wildly different interpretations!

The love of her life as a green monster

One
of the gimmicks of the weekend was that whenever Martino started
shouting, "Whatta we wanna do?" everyone had to run to him and chant,
"Never grow up!" The last two to the huddle were forced to dance off,
James choosing the winner.

On one such occasion,
James' parents had to face off, and it was probably the best set of the
weekend (spoiler alert: his dad won the competition!).

After
lunch on Saturday, in a small window in our activities schedule, a few
crazy peeps decided to jump in the frigid water (it's literally snow
recently melted off of Mt. Shasta).

Saturday
afternoon was the real meat of the weekend. Martino and Caroline had
planned a variety of teamed activities, including creating a miniature
golf course, a water balloon toss, tug-o-war, sack races, dizzy bat, and
capture the flag. I'd never played capture the flag before and
absolutely loved it! My most satisfying moment was catching James by
surprise and him wiping out as I tagged him.

It's a miracle Brittany didn't face plant

James
claimed that out of the whole weekend, he was most excited to make a
watermelon explode due to the slow pressure applied by hundreds of
rubber bands. We each had to stretch at least five around the juicy
beast upon arrival at camp, and tired of waiting, a few guys sat down
around the melon, determined to see some action. Check out the look of
sheer joy on James' face in the below photo, which manages to capture
the exact moment of explosion:

Want to see this process in action? Check out these Russian guys on YouTube do it (I promise it won't disappoint-I can't stop watching on repeat).

That
night, as the final shebang, we had a classic camping talent show,
where people got up at will and presented some kind of entertainment or
talent. A few highlights were James' magic tricks, his parents' string
riddle, and a choreographed group dance that one third of the group had
put together that morning, to the Ghostbusters theme.

At
a certain point in the show, I dragged my chair in front of the crowd and told a ghost story about Whiskeytown and
how it had gotten its name from a man who drank too much whiskey in the
mines and died on his thirtieth birthday, only to return on every man's
thirtieth birthday to judge whether he had the valor to live or die. I
really milked the story, talking about how the spirit could take many
forms, from the tiniest drop of rain to a monstrous grizzly bear to a
quiet deer walking through the forest. Right at that moment, and as if on cue, one of the girls
jumped up and yelled, "Oh my God! A deer!" which legitimately scared
the crap out of me because I wasn't aware I could conjure deer our of
thin air. Later on, Brittany and I agreed the deer kind of undermined
the real punchline of the story, when Brittany came out in a gorilla
costume as the spirit, surveyed James, and ultimately decided he
deserved to live!

The spirit of Whiskeytown

(By the way, Brittany and I completely made up the story. No need to fear Whiskeytown, it's lovely).

What
an incredible weekend of unadulterated (as in no real adulting allowed)
joy and freedom, and I couldn't imagine a more James-appropriate
celebration. Thanks for reminding us how overrated growing up is, my
friend, and for letting us celebrate you in such a fun, beautiful
setting. Really can't wait to see what you come up with for the big
4-0. <3 br="">3>

Travel Size Me

Back in the Bay after one year at l'Università di Bologna and two working for Georgetown at Villa Le Balze in Florence, I'm delighted and determined to make this American chapter in my life as blog-worthy as the last. And if some gelato sneaks its way in, well really I just can't help that.